00:00To my 15-year-old self, I would say,
00:02believe in who you are.
00:04You are going to move people.
00:07Don't be afraid of the power that you have.
00:10Just go out there and let people see you.
00:18I was born in the Bronx.
00:19My dad was a funk band musician,
00:23and my mom was the soul queen.
00:27She got a scholarship for singing,
00:29but she got pregnant with my sister,
00:32so her dream died.
00:33My family didn't really encourage singing for me
00:36because singing was an escape for them.
00:38The children feel it the worst,
00:39especially living in the projects.
00:41We kind of just had to, like, block everything out
00:44in order to survive.
00:46I knew that I could sing because my school teachers
00:49would ask me to be in talent shows,
00:50and I would blow everybody away.
00:53I definitely used singing as an escape
00:55from the environment that we were living in.
00:58I felt like I had wings.
00:59Like, I could fly and get away from any situation.
01:04Like, I was alive.
01:05They drove to my house when they heard the tape
01:19and wanted to hear me sing in person.
01:22I blew them away, obviously,
01:24but it wasn't an overnight success
01:26because Uptown Records didn't know what to do
01:28with someone like me.
01:30You know, this girl is from the hood.
01:33What are we going to do with her?
01:34So I was kind of shelved for a little while
01:36until Puffy came into my life, and he was from Harlem.
01:39What Puffy saw in me was what was in my eyes,
01:42what was in my heart, what was in my walk,
01:44what was in my talk.
01:45It was pain, it was struggle,
01:46but it was also a little twinkle of belief
01:50that something was going to happen.
01:52When my first record took off,
02:08we were still living in the projects.
02:10People are buying your records.
02:11They want to see you.
02:13People in the neighborhood wanted to kill you for it,
02:17and so you pluck this girl from the hood
02:20and throw in all of this stuff,
02:22and so she's going to survive the only way she knows how.
02:25I was resorting to alcohol and, you know,
02:28drugs to numb the pain.
02:30People from the outside looking in would think
02:32that everything was great, but I was in a hell.
02:36I was spiraling down.
02:37I didn't think I was going to make it.
02:39It was like, whoa, okay, now what?
02:42Sing for your life.
02:43Literally, sing for your life.
02:45Ooh, baby, I'm going down.
02:50I'm going down.
02:54Cause you ain't around, baby.
02:58My whole world's upside down.
03:04I didn't think anybody would pay attention
03:06to my call for help, but my fan base did.
03:10They all came out, and they brought my record.
03:13When I was finally trying to wake up,
03:27I realized that I can't do this anymore.
03:30I can't sell death and oppression.
03:34I can save lives.
03:36I have to figure out a way to uplift us
03:38and be a woman of empowerment and strength.
03:41No, no, no, no more, no more, no more drama,
03:47no more drama in my, in my life.
03:56So I took all this depression and all this oppression
03:59that I was dealing with and just put it in my music.
04:03I made the choice.
04:05I chose life.
04:22I hope that my audience, inspired by the words of my songs,
04:27and I hope that they can see my strength, see my courage,
04:32see that I'm never going to give up.
04:34I still have problems just like you.
04:35I still cry.
04:37I'm not playing a game out here.
04:39It's real.
04:40It makes me feel like I am doing my job,
04:43whatever I've been sent to this earth to do.
04:45So now that I have it and I love it,
04:48I'm never going to let it go.
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